


Service with a Smile

by completetheory



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Nonbinary Character, Politics, Post-Canon, Post-Cybertronian Civil War, Queer Friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25673875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: From CMO of the warship Nemesis to New Cybertron retail drudge; how the mighty are fed up.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Service with a Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



_Fickle were the threads of fate woven by the Thirteen Primes,_ or so the mythology went. Postwar Cybertron was big into rewritten folklore - the Council thought it helped fit their narrative of a species pulled back from the brink of extinction. 

Fate hadn’t landed Knock Out a crappy service-side job in New Iacon, and it hadn’t been the reason Breakdown had been dismembered during ‘postwar hostilities’ on Earth. Pure bad luck was the reason Knock Out had ended up so down and out.

The customer in front of hir at that moment was talking some scrap that gave the former Doctor’s panels a slightly hackled edge. It wasn’t anything specific, until suddenly it was.

_\--So I have no problem with the Autobot Autocracy._

Knock Out was sorely tempted to snap, ‘Good for you’, or possibly, ‘I didn’t ask’. The counter between them, and the professional, emotionally void demeanor was all sie had to avoid an altercation. 

“Do you have a problem with the Decepticon Insurgency?” Knock Out asked, knowing full well what the answer was. 

_Yes, blah blah, because their code-swapped companion had spent some time on a Decepticon colony and it was the worst tyranny, etcetera._

Knock Out offered a smile that sie didn’t feel. “Alright, well, if you can just scan your chip for me,” The chip that let the Council know exactly where everyone on Cybertron was at all times, but that also, ‘conveniently’, contained their credit-amounts for purchases.

But of course this joker couldn’t leave it there.

_Are you saying you do support the Decepticons?_

“I’m not saying anything else to you.” Knock Out let coolant into hir voice, keeping hir headlights from turning on and betraying deep-seated anxiety with a force of will. 

_I think that’s very rude, yadda yadda, I want to talk to your manager._

Because they always did. Because flexing on employees was the only way miserable scuts like this got to feel any power in their meaningless lives. 

“Certainly.” Knock Out turned away and ventured into the back, where Swindle was dismantling a few moon-requisitions. Knock Out had actually met Swindle back before the war in a little pirate colony on Cybertron called Naughtilus. Back when Swindle was mostly just a junk seller, and a desperate one, at that.

Fortune had changed for zir, too, and now zie was capable of sourcing almost anything, for anyone, with the numbers filed off and no questions asked. Half the illegal space-capable craft came from Swindle’s shop, though Knock Out had no way of proving it. People talked. 

Swindle emerged from the back, the fluorescent lights picking up the sickly gold and mottled purple of zir paint-job unfavorably, and leaned on the counter. 

“Is there a problem?”

_Yes, your employee was rude to me and I must warn you that I suspect there is Lavender Decepticon (“Lavvie Connie”) Sympathizing going on in this establishment, and if you’re not careful I will have to, as a good citizen, report this to the Council’s Homeplanet Security Department, and so on,_

Swindle fixed big purple eyes on Knock Out, and sie felt the bottom drop out of hir spark core reactor. Hang this fucking job and all its code. Sie didn’t need this. Not from this two-bit customer and their delusions of grandeur, not from Swindle, not from this planet so hatefully small minded after the fresh air that was the freedom of Earth.

Not for the first time Knock Out thought about Starscream, and Shockwave, and Soundwave, and wondered what had happened to them all. Probably the same thing that had happened to Breakdown.

Decepticon Sympathizer, indeed. 

“Is that true?” Swindle asked. 

“No. If you want to know the truth,” Knock Out bit the defense off brittle, “I was trying to keep it professional. They wanted a captive audience to air their worthless opinions to.”

Sie didn’t regret telling zir the truth. But sie did regret the situation, mentally packing bags, calculating hir savings and how much time would be required to get a new job.

Swindle looked to the customer. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” 

_What?_

“Please don’t make me repeat myself. Put my shop in rear-view. Let us see your taillights. Goodbye.”

Knock Out could scarcely believe what sie was hearing, and didn’t dare speak.

The customer didn’t have a problem speaking, getting more animated. _You’re kicking me out? You can’t do that._

“This is private property.” Swindle opened an arm panel, “I can have you thrown out if you prefer to lose your dignity as well as the privilege of shopping here, but I’ll warn you. I don’t trust the police, so I have New Iacon’s bounty hunters on speed dial. They tend to be a little less understanding when they see Autobrands.” 

Expletives, a shelf kicked over, but the customer did, to Knock Out’s relief, actually leave. Swindle gestured, “Turn the sign around please.” 

Knock Out did so, and locked the door at Swindle’s request, hardly daring to look at zir. “--You stood up for me.” 

The doctor hadn’t thought Swindle was a Decepticon - during the war, the stocky little Humvee had been extremely circumspect, and had disappeared at the peak of the first plague outbreak. 

“And myself. I used to have to bow and scrape for every credit.” Swindle leaned over the register, going through the recent transactions. “Now I can be selective. I can choose who I want to give my business to. They have to respect what I can do, or find somewhere else to get what they need. And you’re a good employee. If you thought I would let you go-... Over that?” 

Swindle hadn’t given Knock Out a reason to think it, but the last few years of the Earth campaign had been traumatic. They had left Knock Out a changed person, and not for the better. 

“Not exactly.” Knock Out recovered, “But I didn’t de-escalate.” 

“You shouldn’t have to.”

The passion in hir boss's typically even voice took hir aback. 

Swindle looked to the clock, “We should be closing in twenty anyway. You can go early, I’ll finish up here. --You’ll still get credited for the hour. OK? Take care of yourself.” 

Knock Out had to leave rather quickly; too much of that and sie was going to lose it, start crying mid-thanks, or something like that. Sie managed a general, less-shaky goodbye, and sped off through the city to the complex sie was housed in - a complex that sie shared with many war veteran Vehicons and a handful of minicons. 

Swindle, meanwhile, retreated to the backroom, digging under a pile of junk, unearthing a tarpaulin that covered a stretch of mostly-ordinary paneling, and stroked an edge until zie found the catch. The floor lifted up and revealed a modest cache space, including a battered old ammo box, and several canisters. Swindle dug around a bit, pulled out a Decepticon badge, and sat back against the wall, running zir fingers across the grooves again and again, in meditative stroking. 

The light of Cybertron’s sun faded, and the twin moons hung heavy in the sky. Swindle felt the weight of the cosmos, the weight of the centuries... of the dead souls for a dead cause. The ignorance of the uncaring.

Swindle wept, without castigation or judgment, pawing uselessly at the wiper fluid, but otherwise letting the emotion expand, as ugly and powerfully as it needed to. 

Eventually, when the waves of pain had crested, and receded, Swindle returned the badge to the small contraband cache, cleaned up the customer's tantrum up front, and drove home. 

What a different world it would have been, if they had won.


End file.
